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I felt uncomfortable calling myself a writer until I started with 'The New Yorker,' and then I was like, 'Okay, now you can call yourself that.'

I get irritated by the term 'African writer', because it doesn't mean anything to me.

If I don't measure up as an American writer, at least leave me to my delusion.

I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.

For everyone I know who is a writer, there was some awkward time in their lives when they had to learn to call themselves one.

I write in American slang.

I feel empowered to be a different kind of writer. The longer I stay here, the more light filters into my work. I feel very American. I belong.

I don't call myself a writer.

A lot of my writing is not terribly civilized.

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.